OK, my personal favourate. I fucking love this one.So some lunatic, some saint, some modern day Tesla invetend a lightbulb that never burns out way back in the eighties. But General Electric bought the patent and shelved it so that we'd all have to keep spending money on light bulbs and they could turn a profit. The best thing about this one is that it works for anything. I've heard a version including tires that never wear out (bought up and hidden away by Perrelli) and of course loads of ones about efficient electric cars. This all leads to the much more outlandish claims about free energy devices.

King Kill 33 Degrees is amazing. Basically, it is the big Kennedy assassination one. If I remember correctly, it is all about how his murder was actually a mason ritual killing in order to eliminate a part of the American psyche.

I read it back in college, in the middle of the night during one of my adderall induced sleepess periods, and for a moment there, the sheer amount of detail almost made me believe.

Another great one is the Majestic-12.Twelve scientists who supposedly investigated the Roswell crash and later went on to, presumably through backward engineering, lead and revolutionize their respective fields.

I've long been intrigued by this one - 'mysterious deaths' of a number of defence scientists in the '80s, probably because the disused cafe that one guy blew himself up by driving into is just a few miles down the road. Very odd.

My favorites are those put forth by David Icke. I find them very credible, in that I've had similar theories long before I learned of the mans existence. Anunakki, Zeta-Reticulans, Reptilians. Seeding the planet with human life countless millenia ago, and thru selective inbreeding manipulating the evolution of the human race, using royal bloodlines, like those of the British Royal family, the Rothschilds, a significant number of U.S. presidents, whose ancestory can be linked back to Charlemagne? How about Flouridated water causing a 20% I.Q. Drop? And lets not forget the ALpha Waves given of by Television sets, Radios, Cell Phones, all to keep our minds unable to imagine. Living in Philadelphia PA, I see this first hand. My kinfolk almost seem as though they choose to be dumbed down, for anything else would be "uncool." I live in a nation of people who waste their time and money buying toys and worthless widgets, rather than taking advantage of our FREE libraries, wherein one could learn all they wish, even if, for whatever reasons they may not be able to attend school(School's, which do there best to keep imagination at a minimum anyhow). Oh, and believe you me, the reasons kids cant or wont go to a school are a great many. I've been saying it for over ten years, and the more time progresses the more obvious it gets, and the worse the situation gets. Weather these people truly are snake-men from beyond our dimentional perseptions (85 percent of matter is invisible to our senses...they call it dark matter. what is it? No one knows for sure, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Astrophysicist extrodinaire, himself that we are "dumb-stupid" as far is this mysterious substance is concerned. Other consipiracies that deserve our attention: Donald Rumsfeld and Aspartame, as well as the Monsanto Corporation. check it out, heroes!

I always figured there are two big motivations behind conspiracy theories. The first is raw ignorance. If you have absolutely no idea of the state of Middle East politics, terrorism, or basic physics before the 9/11 attacks, of course you're going to be confused by them. And when we are confused, we look for an explanation. Most conspiracies are a perfect illustration of the old saw "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing."

The second factor is spelled out by the XKCD strip. People decide something is true and only listen to the other people who tell them their beliefs about the ten shooters on the Grassy Knoll are right, feeding the persecution complex these people get. I remember one of the 9/11 conspiracy theories my dullard roommate indulged in was based on this little geometric proof.a. George Bush, Jr. lied about the invasion of Iraq. Therefore GWB is a bad man.b. 9/11 was a horrible event. If GWB is a bad man and a liar, then 9/11 was an inside job.c. Here are all the bad camera angles and misread or outright falsified evidence that proves it.

EDIT: However, I do recall a network news caster talking about warning signs/threats the intelligence community had received prior to 9/11 and how a lack of cohesion between branches prevented effective action on the intelligence. But these days they claim there was no warning for it, so either they were lying then, now or both. I'm inclined to believe they are lying now, because how does an operation of this scale get planned and prepared (partly in the US) without the intelligence community taking notice at all? That's BS.

Hear Hear, Jon Wake. While, I would not rule out that the September 11, 2001 tragety was an orchestrated plot much like the gulf of tahnken affair (yeah, I spelled it wrong, sue me), the fact remains that I cannot prove or disprove it either way. I do think that if it was not an "inside job" it would be the exception to the rule. Everything from the Lusatania, to the (provoked) attack on Pearl Harbor, to the Gulf Of Tonken(which is a proven Lie) were all, as my research and cross referencing thereof were perpetrated by The world bank and other such cartels to get Americans into the War, despite our staunch vow of nuetrallity before the afformentioned tragedies. The Roosevelt family had intimate ties to the banking cartels responsible for the implementation of the Federal Reserve, The Gold Seizure of the great depression, and the the members of those high ranking banking officials who implemented the Federal Income tax law during the Woodrow Wilson years. Federal income tax is completely unapportioned, and a significant number of states never ratified the bill, making this "civic responsibility/duty" grossly unconstitutional. There isn't even a law stating we NEED to pay this tax. I defy anyone to show me a law in writing. If you can, I will gracefully admit I am wrong in this regard. However, as I do believe all of this, when I hear my friends say things like "we never landed on the moon" or "9/11 was an inside job" I tend to cringe, even though much of my being agrees. They lose me, due to their certainty of the matter. They were not there, so they cannot possibly be certain. They have no knowledge of Lunar or Spacial Physics, yet somehow they speak as if they know beyond a shadow of a doubt. Which is impossible. I don't know beyond a shadow of a doubt, despite my belief in the matter. Incorporation of new information and data can easily change my mind on the subject. When the History Channel aired a 2 hour special on the 9/11 conspiracy, a friend of mine described as "completely biased bullshit." He seems to think the word "biased" means anything he doesn't agree with. I saw the documentary and they covered both sides of the story. That's not biased, my friend, Victor, you should read a god damned dictionary, right?

Actually, one of my favorite things about some of the "World Bank" conspiracy theories is that people often claim that the Federal Reserve is a private organization, and the board of the Fed is kept secret from the public. Neither of those statements are true. Forgive me if I'm constructing a strawman, but I find it funny that 1) you can find the list of membersof the Fed on the internet, and 2) the entire point of the Fed is to be separate from the regular branches of the government to avoid bias. It's skirts the line between public and private so as to ensure it's independence from administration, while simultaneously retaining responsibility to the populace. Also, the idea that the Fed lends out money to the nation at interest is untrue, outright.

I have a friend who constantly talks about his conspiracy theory friends. One of them is a functional illiterate, so they tend to just watch videos on "Gloogle" (functional illiterates can be funny) and believe everything they see there. They have said that when the US goes to war, they just go ahead and print up all the money they're going to need, and use that...and that the deficit is a myth. They've said that FEMA is constructing concentration camps that look awful similar to abandoned government facilities, and they don't have any security to them (seriously, the videos of people going there is hilarious--they just hop the fence and start pointing out where the executions are going to take place).

Jon Wake, did you seriously make a reference to Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco earlier? If so, you may very well be my new hero. That feeling is augmented by your quoting of The Onion.

As far as the faked moon landing theory goes, I find Robin Ramsay's speculation on the subject fascinating. He suggests that some of the pictures may not have turned out, making it necessary to fake some for the general public. This would have been done to keep the public interest high. So, there is a shred of truth in the theory. I'm not sure if he's right, but it sure is a fascinating idea.

In fact, Robin Ramsay's book Conspiracies is a great read, since he details a lot of the psychology of conspiracy theories, and describes how hard-core conspiracy nuts are their own worst enemies. Basically, by being obsessive and crazy, they create a natural tendency for people to write off anything about conspiracies as crazed babbling. For instance, there are a bunch of CIA-based conspiracies with heavy documentation around them, yet people still refuse to believe in them. This is probably partly a product of that kind of anti-conspiracy backlash. I cringe, also, when I hear someone ranting so obsessively about these ideas. [Although, I confess, I do it myself if someone is being super excessively sheeplike in my presence... What can I say? They grate on my nerves.]

Has everyone seen Zeitgeist. Hah, XlBalba2012, I can tell you have. I take the content with a grain of salt, but they definitely make a compelling point.

I don't have a link on me, and I haven't checked it out yet, but Who Killed The Electric Car? looks like an interesting one to watch, too.

And, last but not least, my new theory: Jim Morrison faked his own death, used ancient Egyptian immortality rituals, received plastic surgery from a surgeon in the pay of Alaister Crowley's followers, spent several years in hiding in Russia with Rasputin, and then emerged as.... GRANT MORRISON! It makes perfect sense! He's hiding in plain sight!

I bet you could get Grant Morrison to go along with that. From what I've heard, he's convinced he conjured up the disembodied ghost head of John Lennon. I have the book he supposedly said that in. I should get around to reading it.